– Transcript 238
R: (tape starts abruptly) …so you thought you can get rid of me so easily?
It’ll never happen I’m here to haunt you forever.
When you look at a situation never judge it. The mind has been brainwashed, programmed for years to judge whatever you see. You cannot do this. It comes from false imagination. You look at me you make decisions, what’s wrong, what’s right, what shouldn’t be done, what should be done, what’s happening, it’s all false judgment. I tell you in truth nothing ever happens to anyone, no matter how it appears, it’s false. No one is born, no one dies, because no one ever existed. I know this sounds hard to believe.
When you look around you see all the dastardly things going on in this world, with people and you feel it. You hear or see animals being slaughtered all over the place, yet who feels this? To whom does it happen? Really, this is important. Who feels these things? You are the imperishable Self, pure consciousness. This is your real nature.
How can anything happen to consciousness or God? Some of you like the word God, for you are brought up to believe that there is a God in the sky somewhere doing something, whatever he’s doing. How can this God, this consciousness bring right action to this world? There would be no place to put it. For consciousness is all there is, there’s nothing else and you are that.
In other words you are the one that has always been and will always be, always existed. You are that pure awareness, that boundless space that only knows the Self, nothing else, and the Self is bliss. Always be aware of this. Catch yourself when you see something wrong. See only goodness, see only perfection, see only love, peace. Refuse to acknowledge anything else.
Life appears to be very short on this earth plane. What you call your life is but a split second in eternity. In other words you’re here today and gone tomorrow. This is how it seems. But again what is here today and what is gone tomorrow? That which never existed to begin with. That is here today and gone tomorrow. Because in truth there are no tomorrows and there’s no today. There is nothing. How can there be anything wrong in nothing? I know some of you do not believe you’re nothing. You think you’re something.
But if you’re able to really see your body what it really is, it’ll be all space. Your body is made out of space with a little dust spinning around some place. You’re made out of nothing. But you don’t believe me do you, you think you’re something but you’re nothing, zero, nada, emptiness.When you begin to realize that you’re emptiness, you become free. In other words to the extent that you feel your nothing, your emptiness, to that extent do you become free. Do you feel free? You can only feel free when there is nothing going on in your mind.
As long as you allow yourself to think you will never feel freedom, you can’t feel freedom.
For the thoughts become things.
When the mind is active it becomes creative in the world and it comes with all kinds of things. But as we all know things change constantly, consistently, so as we grow spiritually we no longer use the mind to create things for us, we use the mind to destroy itself.
When the mind is destroyed that which is the silent witness of itself, becomes yourself. In other words that which is beyond all phenomena is you, your Self. You are that witness, the observer. It is you, no one else but you. You must become fearless. You must observe things, without observing. How do you observe things without observing?
You look, you see, you touch, you feel, you smell, but there is no reaction. Like watching a movie. You observe the movie, you watch the movie, but something inside tells you are not the movie. But you’re still watching the movie, enjoying the movie, crying with the movie, laughing with the movie, but you’re not the movie. So it is with life.
Observe life unfolding. Look at life doing its thing. Sometimes it does its thing to you, but you have to observe that also. Never become lost in a material situation. Yet never allow the relative world to dictate to you, to make you think something is like this and something is like that. Never be frightened with the world and its manifestations. They’re all dreams, hallucinations but you must experience this for yourself. You experience this for yourself by surrendering everything to the Self or by practicing self-inquiry.
For some people it’s easy to surrender to let go of everything, surrender leads to self-inquiry. Automatically when you give everything up in your mind something answers you, or something tells you inside, “Who gives it up?” it comes by itself when you surrender. It’ll happen by itself. Don’t be afraid to let go, you’ll never be alone. The universe is your friend. It will always take care of you if you do your part first. That is to surrender and allow the universe to take care of you.
It’s like the story of the man who went to a cave and he felt a beautiful breeze coming from the cave. He wanted to find the source of this beautiful breeze. He was a fat man weighed about four-hundred pounds. And there was a tiny hole in the cave he couldn’t get through. He was so enamored by a breeze and its fragrance he just had to find out the source of this breeze. So he went on a diet, he lost weight, he wouldn’t eat and he still couldn’t squeeze through. So he gave up everything. He gave up his job, his home, his family. His only thought in his mind was, “I’ve got to find some of this breeze that smells and feels so beautiful.” He wouldn’t eat at all. He was determined to find the site of the breeze. He finally got down to a skeleton and he shoved his head through the hole in the cave and half of his body got stuck. He couldn’t go in or out. Finally he gave up. He said,
“I’ve done all I can. There is nothing more I can do.” Then the Self pulled him through the hole and he became self-enlightened, self-realized.
What this story means to us is when we stop fighting so much, stop trying to change things, stop trying to make things happen and we let go, depending on God, on consciousness, on the absolute reality, then God will pull you through. In other words you become self-realized. But as long as you rely on one person, place, or thing then you’re alone fighting your battles. This is why true spirituality is not for everyone. For most people are not ready to let go of everything. They still want to hold onto things. So they get involved with spirituality and it makes them pure.
They become involved in various meditations, pranayamas, kundalini, tantra, not realizing all these things come from your mind. They’re all mental things and they will never lead you to self-realization. They will only increase the size of your ego. So true spiritual life is very easy. You just need to surrender, let go of everything. Take refuge in the Buddha or the Self or consciousness, whatever you like to call it. It’s all names. And you take refuge in this by not allowing the world to make you feel anything. As long as this world makes you feel something good or bad, you’re worldly, and you have battles to fight. But when good and bad never impresses you again, then you’re free. Only you can make that choice.
Do not look to reality when things are getting bad in your life. There are many people who search for truth only when they become sick or broke or mad at the world or despondent, then they search for truth. If they get what they want they forget all about it and go out and have a good time. But remember things will change as they always do and you have so much time in your body so-called, in this life, you may be called again to leave your body tomorrow or next week or next month you never know. Where will you be then without a body? You’ll feel naked. You’ll be lost. So you catch another body to get into and to be involved with and go through many many bodies, because you’re attached to the world and its manifestations.
So the secret of awakening is to let go of everything, let go, drop everything. All your conceived ideas, all of your dogmas, all of your rituals, everything you’ve been holding onto, drop it and be free. Do not hold onto anything.
Always question your mind. Whatever the mind tells you ask, “Who is going through this? Who is this coming to? To me, Who am I? Who is the I that’s experiencing these things?” Always work on yourself. Remember to do this everyday. Catch yourself daily. It’s best to begin when you get up in the morning. If you begin to catch yourself in the morning you’ll catch yourself all day long. When I say, “Catch yourself,” I mean catch yourself thinking. Catch yourself reacting, judging.
Only in the silence will you find reality. Self-inquiry leads to silence, surrender leads to silence. Be still and know that I-am God. I will never leave you nor forsake you. In this case the I is consciousness, absolute reality, I-am that I-am. This is the only refuge you’ve got.You cannot take refuge in this world because it changes, it’s a world of duality.
Only in the Self can you take refuge. In the I, the I-am. Be not afraid it is I. I is your father, your mother, your brother, your sister, your friend. I is the Self. In order to find this I you have to bring the little I back from your brain to your heart center on the right side of your chest. That is where your spiritual heart center on the right side of your chest. If you can follow it in the morning it takes a split second. When you’re sleeping, the I goes back into the heart center and rests. At that time you’re no longer aware of this world you’re in deep sleep. As soon as you wake up a split second the I runs back up to the brain. Then you become that you are a body and there is a world, there are people places and things. It is the I-thought that makes you become cognizant of this.
So the secret is to make the I go back into the heart when you awaken, when you awaken, in the waking state. This is why it’s called self-realization. When the I-thought abides in the heart, then you go beyond phenomena. With the average person the I still stays in the brain and causes you to believe that you’re a body-mind phenomena.
Try catching yourself tomorrow morning. As soon as you open your eyes before you have a chance to think observe the I, running from the heart center to the brain. You can also catch it when you go to sleep. Just before you fall asleep. You become very peaceful don’t you? You forget all about your problems, the world, you’re falling into a deep sleep. But the reason you forget about these things when you’re sleeping, is because your I runs from the brain to your heart. If that didn’t happen you would be worrying all day long and all night when you’re sleeping. The worldly problems would never leave you when you’re asleep. So the only reason the world leaves you is because the I-thought is taking refuge in the heart. Follow the I-thought see where it goes, what it does, and if you do that you will soon discover there never was an I-thought. There is only the Self and you are that. Peace.
Feel free to ask any questions. Feel free to say something, anything.
SV: Robert you said don’t be afraid to die. As far as I know the truth I don’t care if this body doesn’t get up off this chair. And that’s a truth as I know it. One Saturday I was doing self-inquiry, what happened is that when there are thoughts and I ask, “To whom does it come?” I can’t say, “I.” because there is no personal I to have thoughts or doesn’t have thoughts. So I go again and I ask, so what is the source of these thoughts, or what is the source of the I-thought? What is the source of the thought? Other times I ask, “Well is there an I that has thoughts?” then I go into self-inquiry with, “Who am I?” Often I can’t go that way because there is no I. (R: Umm.) Then I have to pretend that there really is an I, then I ask, “Who am I?” (R: Umm.) Like I’m sitting in this chair, not in this chair, not in this chair and not far in between. Now I got a choice which way to go.
It really doesn’t matter.
R: First of all, if you gave up your body right now there is a way we have to get rid of it. So we have to burn it in the fireplace. (SV: It’s okay. Henry worries about it.) It would cause a lot of trouble. (SV: Not my problem.) It’s your carcass. (SV: So what?) We don’t want
any carcass in this house. (SV: The word that comes is liverworst.) All is well, Fred. You’re doing the right practice that’s a good practice. Keep practicing the way you’re going.
SZ: When one is being an observer and into your higher self and achieved enlightenment, can you explain the Bodhisattva concepts about enlightenment?
R: The Bodhisattva will not become enlightened until the whole world becomes enlightened. They turn back from complete enlightenment. So this is still the mind doing these things. When the mind is totally destroyed there is no Bodhisattva. Bodhisattva is part of the mind. So that concept has to go also. Every idea, every belief, every concept has to go. All spiritual teachers have to go to become totally free. There cannot be an inkling of spiritual teaching left. Yet the spiritual teachings were important in the beginning, for they brought you where you are now. So you realize you have to get rid of them. It sounds sort of strange, for years many people have been practicing spiritual sadhanas of various kinds and then you have to give them all up in the end.
But for the average person shouldn’t give them up. The average person has to get to that place where he can’t give them up. You have to do them so you can give them up.
But if you’ve never done them there is nothing to give up. So everything is important.
Becoming a Bodhisattva is important. Once you reach that stage you have to give it up.
When there is no longer anything to hold onto whatsoever. You can no longer rely on the Buddha. No one will reach the sangha and lean on it and take refuge in it. You must get to that stage where there is nothing to take refuge in. Destroy everything in the way. Everything has to go. Then reality will come of its own accord. But as long as you abide in any kind of spiritual teaching then you get these feelings. You may get blissful feelings sometimes but you cannot become free.
In order to attain moksha, liberation, every teaching must go. Even self-inquiry it all has to go. Self-inquiry is a method to get to that stage where you can give it up.
SQ: In your analogy of the cave what would you describe as being inside the cave?
R: Inside the cave? (SQ: Yes.) Reality, self-realization. But he couldn’t get through because he didn’t surrender, he was trying to do it by himself. Thinking if he diets he could lose his weight. If he gives up this, if he gives up that. At total surrender the Self will push you into your heart center. The cave is the heart center, spiritual heart on the right side of your chest. You can’t enter by yourself, you can only go so far, but when you become totally unattached you stop using the ego to get things, to do things, and you just sort of give up and surrender totally and completely, then the Self grabs you, pulls you in to the heart and you become free. So the analogy of the cave is the heart.
SK: To gain liberation what is the relationship between grace and effort.
R: Grace and effort? A little of both. (SK: Both?) In the beginning you use effort. As you practice self-inquiry, practice surrendering when you’ve gone far enough, grace takes over. Grace is another term for the Self. The Self is grace and it just pulls you in. But grace comes when you make effort. It’s sort of a contradiction. The whole of spirituality is contradictions. You have to make the effort and you have to give up the effort. This is why in Advaita it is really for people who have had spiritual experiences from practicing sadhanas for many years in former lives. They’re in the right stage then grace comes. But if you’re still quarreling with the world, still quarreling with yourself, still have personal problems, you still think your body is important, your affairs are important or this is important or that’s important, it’s virtually impossible to have grace, because you’re too engrossed in the ego. If you are still worrying what is going to happen to me tomorrow or I’m not happy once I do this or do that, then grace cannot come. It only comes when you give up everything. When you have sort of a care free attitude. Not my will but thine. You give up your personal will, personal power.
But that’s not a weakness, there’s a strength in this. Do not think that you’ll become weak or passive, no you don’t. You become very strong. The world can no longer hurt you. There is no fear any longer. You realize who you are and what you are. And you’re at peace with yourself and everybody else. So grace and the Self are one.
SP: The time when you become enlightened what makes you a teacher? Like what makes you a teacher?
R: That’s a good question. A Jnani or a Sage becomes a teacher without any desire of being a teacher. In my own case I never asked to be a teacher. It just happens wherever I go people gather around me for some reason. I never sent for them, I never ask them anything, they just come. I’m not thinking about it, I talk nonsense. (SP: Would you call it a high indifference?) Excuse me? (SP: Would you call that a high indifference?) Call it what? (SP: A high indifference?) A high difference (SP: A high indifference.) Oh high indifference. Yes you can call it if you like. Call it whatever you like. (laughter) There are really very few Jnanis, real Jnanis, or Sages that teach, but some of them do to balance it out. To make certain people realize they’re in the right path. But it happens naturally by itself. There is no effort in it. In other words they are not trying to start a large movement. If I advertise, if I wrote books, if I went on TV, go on the radio, have seminars, then you can know something’s wrong there. But I do absolutely nothing. (SP: But it’s your non-attachment. You still do these things but it’s your non-attachment to life?) You can say that. You can say anything you like.
(students laugh)
SZ: Several people have mentioned to me that they have a problem with Advaita Vedanta.
(R: What problem?) A problem in the context that they are trying to convince themselves that, yes, this is just a dream, this is an illusion, and yet their actual experience, they still experience anxiety and worry and anger and whatever, so there is kind of a split. Intellectually you’re trying to say to yourself, this is just a dream, while actually you’re experiencing worry and anxiety?
R: Of course. And yet you’re suffering. So the words that you speak make no difference. It’s not the words that you speak it’s beyond words and thoughts. When you stop speaking, when you keep still. When you stop saying it’s a dream, the less you talk the better off you are. When you become still and you go deep inside. Go deeper and deeper inside. Dive deeper than you ever gone before, then something will touch you and annihilate your ego. So the words that you speak doesn’t matter. Your intellect doesn’t matter, be
still. When you practice self-inquiry have no motive or reason for practicing it. Just do it.
Don’t think about it. Do not think it’s going to take you somewhere or do something for you or what’s going to happen, just do it and be still and everything will happen of its own accord.
It’s good to know it’s all a dream, like you say when you’re suffering, then how could it be a dream? So if you’re suffering with anger and anxiety you have to work with those things and inquire, “To whom does it come? Who experiences these things? I do.
What is the source of the I? Where does the I come from who experiences those things?”
And you separate yourself from the I, the small I. Realizing the I goes through this, not me. I’m not the I and keep silent. And everything will take care of itself.
Mary would you read the Jnani? (SM: Yes Robert.)
(Mary reads the Jnani refer to beginning of this book for text) R: Thank you Mary. Do we have any announcements?
SZ: How do you surrender?
R: (silence) Like this. What you’re doing right now. Being silent. Not paying any attention to your thoughts. That is how you do it. Just like you’re doing right now. See you’re doing it. Keep it up everyday. Everyday you should sit a half hour in the morning and a half hour in the evening by yourself. Don’t meditate more than one half hour. Sit by yourself and watch your thoughts like you’re doing now. Don’t react to them. Don’t react to thoughts. Whatever comes to your mind never react, just watch, smile, and you’re surrendering. As your thoughts come, as thoughts come to you, you no longer pay any attention to it, it doesn’t bother you, that’s surrendering. The next thought comes to you, you don’t pay any attention to it. It doesn’t frighten you, it doesn’t make you happy, it doesn’t make you sad, just watch it and it’ll go away, you surrender that thought. You keep it up, keep it up, and as you keep it up your mind will become calmer and calmer and calmer and quieter and quieter and quieter, until the mind dissolves itself in the heart and you will be free. That is how you do it…
(tape ends abruptly)
Absätze ohne Sprecherpräfix gehören dem zuletzt genannten Sprecher — so steht es im Buch, wo der Präfix nur den Anfang einer Rede markiert. Die Zuordnung ist eine Folgerung dieser Ausgabe. Namen in Klammern sind aus dem Text erschlossen: sicher belegt sind SM = Mary, SF = Fred, SJ = Jay, SC = Nate, wahrscheinlich SG = Glen, SR = Jorge. Alle anderen Kürzel bleiben stehen, weil der Beleg nicht trägt.